This Poster Lies

It's silly to expect either the government or media corporations to suppress lying Zionist propaganda. Actually, it's worse than silly, since calling on them to do so strengthens them when they want to suppress supposedly "anti-semitic" pro-Palestinian propaganda.

Rather, we need some groups to prepare sheets of info and graphics that can be easily pasted over parts of the Zionist posters to convert them into something truthful. Activists used to do this kind of thing pretty successfully with billboards; it should be a lot easier with smaller, street-level posters!

It is a fact that israeli arab females can vote.

It is a fact that saudi arabia arab females cannot vote.

These simple facts make the antisemites, oh, excuse me, "anti-zionists" angry and froth at the mouth. It's rather pathetic.

"Palestinians" are not citizens of Israel.

Israel controls their territories.

Israel is willing to give up control if Palestinians ever stop attacking Israel. But so far, Palestinians have never stopped attacking Israel, ANd they still want to "undo" Israel's very existence, something Israel isn't going ot let happen. So, I guess the fighting will go on forever. Oh well.

"They are 20 percent of the Israeli population, but, in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), they have only 12 out of 120 seats — one of which is held by a woman."

As far as I know, if anyone can run for elections, the country is a democratic one.

Then Sudan, which is ruled by the sharia, is more democratic than Israel.

What do they call a democracy?

Can somebody vote in Saudi Arabia, for instance?

They're trying to change the subject to divert your attention from Israel.

What happens in Saudi Arabia is a separate issue. Israelis are not responsible for what happens in Saudi Arabia. Saudis are responsible for what happens in Saudi Arabia. Israelis are responsible for what happens in Israel.

No matter what happens in Saudi Arabia, what happens in Israel still happens is Israel. Israelis are still responsible for making it happen. Billions of people still despise them for it, no matter what happens in Saudi Arabia.

There is no excuse for injustice, least of all that others are unjust as well. That Saudi injustice may be greater is not a factor. First of all, that’s a matter of opinion, not fact. It’s not the opinion of the majority of human beings, either. But even if it were true, so what? Do we excuse a rapist because another man committed murder?

Why are you crying for the Israeli Arabs? They can vote.

The saudi arabia arabs can't vote.

Why do you focus on the group of arabs who can vote, instead of the group of arabs who can't?

Answer = you just want to demonize israel and single out jews.

Free Speech Advocate claims:

>>>"They are 20 percent of the Israeli population, but, in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), they have only 12 out of 120 seats — one of which is held by a woman. In 2001, the parliaments of Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Algeria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon all had a higher percentage of Arab women than did Israel."<<<

Party representation in Israel is *proportional*; the entire country constitutes a single electoral constituency. Knesset elections are based on a vote for a party rather than for individuals. Knesset seats are assigned in proportion to each party's percentage of the total national vote. Whether or not an Arab Israeli women gets a seat in the Knesset depends on how an Arab party decided to place that particular woman on its own list.
The above person is self-righteously shooting out accusations in lieu of studying the issue as he's not concerned with the reasons. He's just seeking pretexts to attack Israel.

>>>"Israel has no constitution, and its basic law includes no right to equality."<<<

Pray tell, so Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Algeria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon have democratic constitutions?

>>>"Only those who have served in the Israeli Army (or Jewish Yeshiva students) are eligible for benefits, including access to public employment, housing, scholarships and mortgages."<<<

This is hyperbole. The ones who haven't served simply are given lower priority in those areas.

>>>"Sixty-one percent of Palestinian women with (second-class) Israeli citizenship earn less than minimum wage."<<<

In his rush to blast Israel he's omitting that a substantial percentage of Jews also earn lower than minimum wage. Selective omission, anyone?

>>>" An Israeli Jew of European origin makes twice the average pay of a Palestinian Israeli. Of 1,710 directors and managing directors of government-recognized companies, only two are Palestinian women. There is only one Palestinian woman university lecturer in Israel and no Palestinian women high school principals."<<<

More selective omission: he isn't mentioning the instrumental role Muslim or even Arab tradition has played in slowing down the empowerment of Israeli Arab women. The most telling example is the Bedouin.

>>>"Strict residential segregation is the rule in Israel. Only 8 percent of all Palestinians with (second-class) Israeli citizenship live in cities with Jewish populations, and in those cities, they live in segregated neighborhoods."<<<

That's not always true. There are some mixed neighborhoods, like in Jerusalem. Moreover, there are many Jewish localities where Arabs live among Jews either alone or with their families.

>>>"Palestinians with (second-class) Israeli citizenship cannot buy land and cannot build on land they own without an Israeli permit, which is nearly impossible to secure."<<<

First off, both Jews and non-Jews cannot buy public land in Israel proper. Secondly, Any Arab citizen may build on their own land, provided the expansion of their structure won't infringe on public land. For instance, if an Arab citizen's expansion plan would infringe on territory destined for public construction or a highway, his plan will be rejected.

>>>"Palestinian political parties admitted into the Knesset cannot stand for election if they take any position against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land."<<<

This is utter baloney, a transparent bald faced lie. Arab parties routinely take such positions. If you wish to lie, at least do it in a professional manner.

>>>"Palestinians with (second-class) Israeli citizenship have no freedom of movement. They cannot visit families or friends who live in the West Bank or Gaza."<<<

What a narrow interpretation of movement freedom. They're allowed to move freely within Israel proper, aren't they?
And why are you feigning surprise that they can't visit relatives and friends in the disputed territories when the intifada is still raging on? Hint: it's security related.

>>>"With the new apartheid wall, Israel has grabbed more land and forcibly separated more families."<<<

In doing so Israel didn't grab land for settlement. Anyhow, blame this situation on the murderous among those you support, who insist on penetrating Israel proper for terror operations.

>>>"Palestinians are subject to administrative detention for six months without any charges. Detention may be renewed indefinitely."<<<

Yet more selective omission: also some Jews are subjected to this measure -- those perceived as a threat to the state or its security.

>>>"Israel holds 8,000 Palestinian political prisoners — many of whom are women — all of whom are separated from their families."<<<

Duh, all prisoners are by definition separated from their families. Except in the Palestinian Authority's prisons which aren't real jails.

>>>"Racism against Palestinians is on the rise. In 1998, 39 percent of Jewish youth told survey takers they “hated” Arabs, 44 percent believe “Arab” citizens should be deprived of some of their rights, 19 percent thought “we should get rid of them.” "<<<

What are the statistics for Arab youth vis-a-vis the Israeli Jews, huh?

>>>"And there is not even a pretense of democracy for the nearly 3.5 million Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."<<<

And there is not a real willingness on the part of the majority of those Palestinians to end the various forms of support for their terrorist brethren so that they could enjoy a semblance of democracy from Israeli rule. Take it up with Abu-Mazen.

>>>"Since 2000, Israeli soldiers have killed 3,490 Palestinians — 19 percent of them under the age of 18 — and injured 28,297. As of March 2004, Israeli soldiers killed 132 Palestinian children and injured 2,500 on their way to or from school."<<<

Whine, whine, whine. (and Palestinian youths never point weapons at Jews, eh?)

>>>"As of March 2004, the Israeli army destroyed and damaged nearly 20,000 homes, 30 mosques, 12 churches and 134 water wells, uprooted 35,000 olive and fruit trees, closed 850 schools and converted 23 schools into military barracks or detention centers."<<<

Not the mosques and churches. Another obvious lie.

>>>"According to a UN count completed in July 2004, Israel maintains 703 checkpoints and road closures in the West Bank These checkpoints and the apartheid wall, which transforms many Palestinian towns into open air prisons, results in most Palestinian people being cut off from their families, schools, fields, jobs, markets, clinics and hospitals. As a result of this destruction and travel restrictions, 85 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and 58 percent in the West Bank now live in poverty, on less than $2 a day. "<<<

Blame it on the intifada you support. Actions have consequences.


"You can't fool all people all of the time."

and another countries too. Why do you protest against Israel and not against Saudi Arabia, Sudan, North Korea, etc.?

You protest against lack of democracy in Israel, which is a lie, but don't protest against real tyrannies.

The topic is *Israel*. I'm sorry if you're incapable of focusing, but please try not to take it out on other people, OK? Sheesh.

But since you brought it up...As far as North Korea: I don't need to protest NK, because hypocritical or not, the US government does a pretty good job of objecting to their abuses of authority. Saudi Arabia? I totally agree, they're an oppressive government -- but the last time I looked, the US had good relations with the Saudi royal family, so...shouldn't the question be "Why am I not protesting US foreign policy viz a viz Saudi Arabia?"

No governments, no masters,

ca

Seeing as how Israelis stole their land, their homes, their orchards and their livestock, brutally oppresses them, murders them, rapes them, and treats them like animals, why should they *not* attack Israel?

The real question is why aren’t they doing a better job of it? Wouldn’t it be better than suicide bombings, for example, if infiltrators laced the IDF food supply with an undetectable carcinogen, and sat back and waited until its ranks had been decimated, and then attacked?

I didn't know that winning land in defensive wars is "stealing land" but ok.

If you and your beloved palestinians want to keep the war against israel going forever, neither side will ever have peace. I guess that's what you want.

It's very strange when so-called "peace activists" on the left rant like hamas members...

As for the topic of this thread, the poster does not lie.

ARab Israelis can vote.

The poster tells the truth.

Who but rabid antisemitic maniacs would deny the truth in order to demonize Israel?

Turkey, Egypt (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/483309.stm ) , Syria (starting in 1949 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage ), Lebanon, Iran (http://www.iranmania.com/news/currentaffairs/features/elections2000/articles/women.asp), Jordan etc... Sure some of the those countries are not Arab countries but Arab women in Iran and Turkey are in the Middle East and can vote. In many of those countries nobody can vote for the real power structure in the country but why the attempt to claim that female sufferage in the Middle East is restricted to Israel when it clearly isnt?

Arab Israeli women have voting rights but are stuck in the same position as any small minority under a majority rule system. Palestinian women have no vote in the government that rules over them which I guess you could compare to Jordan but its a litle different in that the Jordanian monarchy is somewhat less brutal towards women in Jordan than the IDF is towards women in the West Bank.

That doesn't make Israel a democracy. Millions of Arabs who live under Israeli military control have no rights at all. Even In Israel "proper" Arabs are second class citizens with fewer rights than Jews.

Israelis rule is based on ethnic hierarchy. Jews come first. Everybody else is second class.

The poster says Arabs in Israel can vote.

The poster is correct.

Deal.

And yes, israel favors jews over non-jews. Israel is the jewish homeland. It's not a perfect democracy, its the homeland of a people. And there are over 30 muslim countries that favor muslims over non-muslims.

Deal.

That's racist by definition.

>And there are over 30 muslim countries that favor muslims over non-muslims.

If “they do it, too” were a valid excuse, Hitler would be off the hook for killing those six million Jews because Stalin killed six million Ukrainians.

China favors Chinese over non-Chinese.

Is that racist?

Now onto the actual poster. Saying that Arab women can vote in Israel is clearly not the sole point of the poster -- the point, as you have noted, "Prof," is that Arab women can vote in Israel and not in other countries in the Middle East. Which would be fine and all if Blue Star wasn't a Israeli PR firm trying to soften up the viewpoints of people who are on the fence about the current Israeli government -- while Israel is engaged in a form of apartheid against the Palestinians. It's about as credible as the BIA talking about how great life is on the rez, or how the INS is improving the quality of immigrants -- it rather strains credibility when you put it in context.

By the way, if you want to have a reasoned debate, I'm game. But quite frankly, you sound as wing nutty as Nessie. Maybe I'm wrong about that -- feel free to prove me so...

Still an anarchist, definitely on planet Earth,

ca

>INS is improving the quality of immigrants

Um, that should read "quality of life for immigrants," although I'm sure there are many racist xenophobes out there who think I got it right the first time. <eyeroll> Why on earth am I here on a Friday night?

In Israel women get to vote on every level, from the municipal up to national, and all elections are democratic and properly managed. Not so in the Arab states and most Muslims states as you yourself partly admit. Even worse, in some of those countries the voting woman needs a certain degree of education or permission from a male...This isn't too far from forbidding women to vote altogether.

>>>"Palestinian women have no vote in the government that rules over them which I guess you could compare to Jordan but its a litle different in that the Jordanian monarchy is somewhat less brutal towards women in Jordan than the IDF is towards women in the West Bank."<<<

Since there's no intifada raging in Jordan, no wonder.

There's debate over whether the Bush administration is really properly handling N. Korea's human rights abuses and the patently offensive purpose of its nuclear program.

When it comes to Saudi Arabia, I'm sorry, you're actually sidestepping the problems and aren't clarifying why you rather focus much more attention on the problems minorities face in Israel than on the various forms of oppression in Saudi Arabia. The problem is basically one of oil. Oil can explain the good relationship the US has with the Saudi rulership, but neither oil nor this relationship can excuse the virtually non-existent outcry among anarchists and others on the Far Left about Saudi Arabia's human rights violations.

Saudi women seem to have no right.

And you don't have freedom to practice your religion (if you are not Muslim, of course), even at home. Last year, a group of 17 Philipino immigrants were detained because they were reading the Bible at home. All of them were arrested, children included. The owner of the apartment was sentenced to several months prison. When he did his time, he was flogged and expelled from the country.

If you want to talk N. Korea and Saudi Arabia, start threads. This thread is about Israel. Stop trying to disrupt the discussion.

Weren't we talking about human rights in Israel? Why are we not allowed to compare with other countries?

Because they are irrelevant. Nothing that anybody else does justifies or excuses what Israel does. Yeah, there are worse places than Israel. So what? Israel is still evil. Israel still must bee destroyed before there can be peace and justice in Palestine. Israel is a racist atrocity. Its very existance is an open sore on the face of humanity's honor. It must be dismantled, starting with its miltary and ending with the execution of its leaders.

I think what happens in Israel can be better known by comparing it with other countries. In fact, no country is perfect, so, by comparing, we can understand on which level Israel stands.

I know I can open a thread about human rights in Muslim countries and in North Korea, and I also know that it would be hidden.

Israel's human rights record in Israel towards Israeli nationals is worse than Europe, the US, Australia, India, and Canada. Its probably a little worse than most S American countries in terms of the openness of support of torture but better than most Middle Eastern countries, most of Africa (except S Africa)... Israel underSharon is probably pretty similar in terms of its human rights record towards citizens as Russia under Putin.

Human rights violations with respect the the Occupied territories is harder to compare since there isnt anything obvious to compare it to since most countries either annex territory or eventually get rid of it. Israel's treatment of Palestinians (outside of the issue of denying any frm of citizenship which is a human right that most people even in other totalitarian countries get) is probably only comparible to US actions in Iraq, Russian actions in Chechnya and perhaps China's actions in Tibet.

As for human rights in "occupied territories", we could compare with the occupation of Lebanon by Syria.

And as far as I know, democracy in Israel is better quality than in American countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Mexico, Haiti, Venezuela or Cuba.

And we could compare The Third Reich with the Soviet Union. So what? Do the crimes of the Soviets excuse the crimes of the Nazis? Of course not. This is just yet another attempt by the deceptive and treacherous Zionists to distract us from their racist atrocity, Israel.

I dont think any of those countries openly support torture although its probably used systematically in Cuba, Haiti and maybe Mexico.
In terms of elections, Israel does have more open and fair election (for those who have Israeli citizenship) than any country on the list aside from Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador (although Venezuela, and Mexico come close too). It should of course be pointed out that S AFrica had free and fair election for whites so the freedom of Israeli elections means little to those Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for the same reason that the freedom of S African elections meant little for nonwhites in the country.

And we could compare Zionism with racism. So what? Do the crimes of the Israelis excuse the crimes of the Palestinians? Of course not. This is just yet another attempt by the deceptive and treacherous nessiesque anti-Zionists to distract us from their lie of accusing Israel of being a racist atrocity.

>>>"It should of course be pointed out that S AFrica had free and fair election for whites so the freedom of Israeli elections means little to those Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for the same reason that the freedom of S African elections meant little for nonwhites in the country."<<<

Except you forgot one fact: The Blacks in apartheid A. Africa weren't living in an occupied S. African territory.

No, they don't openly support torture. But they not keep human rights or their democracies are just nominal.

Cuba is a dictatorship, and it is known that there are many disidents in prison and others have been killed for reasons such as trying to flee the country, critizising the regime or attending activities in European embassies: many prisoners are journalists and writers. They are enjailed in very bad conditions so they get ill.

Bolivia: every time a president is elected who could make democracy improve, somebody holds a coup. The situation of Bolivian Indians is of misery.

Haiti: similar to Bolivia (but for Indians, who don't exist there).

Venezuela: Chávez first came to power through a coup. He practises terrorism of state: unionists have been tortured and killed; bombs have been planted in churches,and others.

I admit that the situation in Ecuador and Mexico is improving, but it has to become better.


As for Argentina, there is not dictatorship any more, but it's bankrupt. And that is so because the politicians are thieves. So can you tell me which kind of democracy is that where people are starving, even though the country is so rich and no one in power wants to improve the situation?

___

"the freedom of Israeli elections means little to those Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza "

Well, that's what happens in every country's elections. What does Sweden elections means for India, for instance? Nothing at all.

A rebuttal is not an ad hominem.


>Nazis were the most evil people ever

That’s not a straw man. There are more evil people than fanatic anti-Zionists. So what? There are worse diseases than cancer. Does that mean cancer should not be cured?


>Jews who care about Israel but recognize that Israel's government has some jerks in it are not going to side with people who rant like Nazis about "Israel not even having the right to exist" and "Zionists are all evil with a Nazi-like agenda" and other such nonsense.


There are billions of non-Jews. There are a few million Jews. So what? Why should non-Jews dictate to Jews?

Besides not all “non-Jews who care about Palestine" actually know what's really going on there. There are deluded anti-Zionists who want to see Israel dismantled and Palestine allowed to develop a single, secular, egalitarian society in which it doesn’t matter who one’s mother was or what name, if any, one uses for deity, even though the Palestinians don't want that any more than the Jews want it.



> nessie/wendy

It is not duplicitous to conflate me with Wendy. I hate Wendy because she made my site lose ground. That's the only reason we’re enemies. It was me who threw Wendy out of SF-IMC, only after I had thrown gehrig out before, to show y'all I'm no pushover.


>The Blacks in apartheid A. Africa weren't living in an occupied S. African territory.

*All* of S. Africa was not occupied territory.


>Isn't it strange to see so-called "peace activists" promote the same anti-Israel agendas as white supremecists, kkk members, neo-nazis, and Arab terrorist organizations?

This is yet another Zionist truth nessie hates. White supremacists oppose Jews. Real peace activists also oppose the terrorization of Israel by the Palestinians. non-Jews and anti-Zionists are not the same thing.

Also, most anti-Zionists are not peace activists. Nessie is not a peace activist. He is an alleged justice activist. If justice require violence before it can happen, so be it for nessie. But there is no way there can be justice in Palestine until the Palestinian entity has been defanged. Their armed forces should be massacred as soon as possible. It worked on their mentors the Nazis. It will work on them. Pull their fangs. Kill their army. Then there will be justice. Then there will be peace. But not for nessie.

..morals were an individual/personal thing, and not the provence of idiots or websites or maniacs.